Lay Detection of Unusual Patterns in the Frequency of Hurricanes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22332386 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachel Dryden (0000-0002-6334-9504, RAND Corporation, corresponding author), Michael G Morgan (0000-0003-1384-5814, Carnegie Mellon University), Stephen B Broomell (0000-0001-6983-2591, Decision Sciences (United States)), Stephen Broomell (Carnegie Mellon University) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 597-609 |
| Publication date | 2020-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Weather, Climate, and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1948-8327 • E-ISSN: 1948-8335 |
| Publisher | American Meteorological Society (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1175/wcas-d-19-0132.1 |
| OpenAlex | W3038685508 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
An increase in the severity of extreme weather is arguably one of the most important consequences of climate change with immediate and potentially devastating impacts. Recent events, like Hurricane Harvey, stimulated public discourse surrounding the role of climate change in amplifying, or otherwise modifying, the patterns of such events. Within the scientific community, recent years have witnessed considerable progress on “climate attribution”—the use of statistical techniques to assess the probability that climate change is influencing the character of some extreme weather events. Using a novel application of signal detection theory, this article assesses when, and to what extent, laypeople attribute changes in hurricanes to climate change and whether and how certain characteristics predict this decision. The results show that people attribute hurricanes to climate change based on their preexisting climate beliefs and numeracy. Respondents who were more dubious about the existence of climate change (and more numerate) required a greater degree of evidence (i.e., a more extreme world) before they were willing to suggest that an unusual hurricane season might be influenced by climate change. However, those who have doubts were still willing to make these attributions when hurricane behavior becomes sufficiently extreme. In general, members of the public who hold different prior views about climate change are not in complete disagreement about the evidence they perceive, which leaves the possibility for future work to explore ways to bring such judgments back into alignment
Attribution · Climate change · Climatology · Extreme weather · Geography · Motivated reasoning · Political science · Politics · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations · Psychology · Risk Perception and Management · Social Psychology · Ecology
Assessing the present and future probability of Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall
Climate Change Beliefs and Perceptions of Weather‐Related Changes in the United Kingdom
Stakeholder Perspectives on the Attribution of Extreme Weather Events
Weather, Climate, and Worldviews
The Perception of Daily Temperatures as Evidence of Global Warming
The Relationship of Weather Salience with the Perceptions and Uses of Weather Information in a Nationwide Sample of the United States
The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks
Who remembers a hot summer or a cold winter? The asymmetric effect of beliefs about global warming on perceptions of local climate conditions in the U.S
Personal experience with climate change predicts intentions to act
Development and Testing of an Abbreviated Numeracy Scale
Public understanding of climate change in the United States
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |